"The growth of understanding follows an ascending spiral rather than a straight line." ~Joanna Field

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

It is a question going around the Facebooks' of my friends: Tell me something I don't know about you.

And when you stop to think, how well do you know the people you have on Facebook. (Entertain me for a moment, if you do not have Facebook. Think of a phone's contact list, or people you talk to everyday, or Myspace, Twitter, Tumblr et. al.)

If you're anything like me, not as well as one might want.
I break just under a hundred and half Facebook friends.
I have, at some point or another, met all of them. (With few exceptions. I have not met my sister's boyfriend. I have not met my brothers current wife. About five people I have not met, however I am related to them in some fashion.)

School friends... or acquaintances. Work buddies and/or friendlies. Family. People I meet in various other ways.
Not everyone I've ever met, by any means. I've taken people off my Facebook (Because I don't know them that well), there are people I never accept, or never ask.

But how well do I know any specific one of them?

On average I can probably tell you their name when given a picture, and possibly vice versa.
Birthday? No.
Favourite colour/food/airline? No.

Why I know them and/or have them on Facebook? Most of the time.

I don't know what they are taking in school, I don't know if they have pets or siblings, I don't know if their parents are together or even alive or in the picture.

And I can say the same for them. Chances are they know shit-all about me too. (Unless they are much better Face-stalkers than I...).

What scares me about this isn't that I don't know. It is that I don't care.
For maybe... 15% of those people I know the answers to some/most/all of those questions.
For maybe another... 7% I'd like to know.
(20ish and 10ish people respectively)

That is about thirty people that I want to interact with, that I care about past random curiosity or politeness.

This post has taken a real jog from where I thought it was going.

It comes down to the oft reiterated idea that before Facederp and "social networking", people supposedly knew and cared about more people, because it was necessary.
If I wanted to know the gossip, I had to know you. Or at least someone who knows you.
One didn't get that close to someone without a friendship or a restraining order.

Now I say, hey, that person is some random person I have not talked to except that once, but they are in my class. I'll add them to my -media of choice-. And Now I hear/see everything. Without any effort.
And without the effort the caring goes down.

Anyway, these are old ideas. I want to broach the point of this silly post. (If one can call it a point)

What I was going to say before the rant was how there are these people asking "Tell me something I might not know".
And all I can think is "There's nothing there."
Everything there is to me is out there for you to see. Every nuance, every awkward glance, the things I squwee at, the things I do that scare you.
I have no secrets, or, at least, none that would be worth sharing.

What do you want to know? I am the openest of books.

"If you say something often enough, it dilutes it. Turns the poison into wine, the burns into bug bites. If you say something over and over, eventually it will be gone."
If you tell enough people that you are in pain, or were in pain, or that this'n'that happened here'n'there, they take a tiny bit of it onto their shoulders, a pebble from the boulder you are carrying.

And soon telling people becomes a drug, becomes the one thing you find yourself doing.

And the one thing you hate yourself for.

So no, I have no secrets. I gave mine all away. There is nothing you might not know about me, only things you have never needed to ask.
Because I am an addict to sharing, and you are my dealer.

To clarify, I have been reading random tidbits about the Occupy movement. I do not know all the facts, and to be honest this is only due to lack of interest.(though if you were to look at the time between the last post and this one might surmise I haven't been interested in much lately. This would be accurate.)

I do however see plenty of signs and notes in the various channels I peruse.

Most go something like "I have this and this and this problem and debt, I am the 99%".Others go "This and this and this are fortunate in my life, I am the 1%, I support the 99%"

So I thought I would write one. The ending may be spoiled, but I think it may surprise you anyway:

I am in my second year of college.When I graduate I will be $20,000+ in debt.

My parents are not able to support me as they are as deep or deeper in debt on one side, just above water on the other.

My stepfather regularily disregards several of his medications for diabetes, congenitive heart failure, extreme pain, and other issues because we can't afford them.I quit my anti-depressants because we cannot afford them.I worked all summer and saved for years to help pay for my school.

Most of that money has been used to keep my family afloat.

I am unsure of my eventual employment.

I am the 1%

And there are many things behind those statements that could improve or worsen them, make them seem earth shattering or day-making.At least once a day I wonder if I am going to make it, or if these troubles will consume me.

But then I remember that small fact.I Am The 1%.Globally North America is in a much better position than a large portion of the populace.Canada especially.

In this country, in this economy, with these factors? Yeah, I am the 99%.But what is the saying? Think Globally, Act Locally?